


Bad Faith

by Engelikal



Series: The Fire That Burned The Archdemon [1]
Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age: Origins
Genre: Canon Compliant, Canon Expansion, Canon-Typical Violence, Dehumanization, Fantasy Racism, Gen, Implied/Referenced Sexual Assault, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Kinloch Hold, Mage Abuse and Oppression, Origin Story, Retelling, self indulgent
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-04-07
Updated: 2017-05-11
Packaged: 2018-05-31 12:09:01
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 19,458
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6469516
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Engelikal/pseuds/Engelikal
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>(Part of a self indulgent retelling of Dragon Age: Origins, split into several parts.)</p><p>  <i>Yesterday, it was The Harrowing.  Today, it was watching as someone who had once been a friend--watching Jowan--become a hollow shell, a living corpse.  Tomorrow, apprentices would disappear by the tens without notice, and new children would arrive, torn from their families, to fill the lower levels of the Tower with the echoes of constant wailing.</i></p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prelude

 

* * *

 

It had been a long time since these halls had looked so foreboding.  Walking up the stairs in the dead of night with a half dozen Templars as an escort, the grand arches of the doorways seemed to loom much taller than they had since Eliysium Surana had first arrived at the Circle of Magi, twelve years ago.  Every crack in the stone tile stood stark, every glaring error becoming focused where once it had been dulled by a haze of familiarity.  This was not his first time traipsing the mountain of these stairs, not his first time passing by the upper library, _certainly_ not his first time passing by First Enchanter Irving's office--but it was the first time his journey had ended at this room: The Harrowing Chamber.

 

First Enchanter Irving and Knight-Commander Greagoir were already there, standing as centerpieces in the spacious, round chamber.  They were surrounded by an overabundant host of Templars, so numerous as to give even Surana pause.  

 

It seemed a bit of overkill, he mused, for just one Mage.  

 

A complex path of runic Glow Stone had been inlaid throughout the enclosure, but the illumination they wrought paled in comparison to the single stream of sharp blue light coming from the very middle of the room.  Said light emanated from a basin placed on a long stand, backlighting the faces of both First Enchanter Irving and Knight-Commander Greagoir alike, casting dark shadows across their individual expressions.

 

The look on Greagoir's face was much the same one he had worn since he had first taken notice of Surana upon his apprenticeship to the First Enchanter--the look of a man being forced to cage and care for a feral animal, always wary of having his fingers caught in its jaws when it finally snapped.  Somehow, that was more comforting than Irving's equally familiar countenance.  Irving's face was a mask of placidity and fatherly concern which had been fashioned to cover the scheming mind underneath.  The parental nature of it had set many a lonesome apprentice at ease.  For Surana, it sent only sparks of fire skittering across his skin that were all too figurative to ward off the chill of the man’s ambition.

 

"Magic is meant to serve man," Knight-Commander Greagoir recited, as Eliysium took his assumed place standing before him and Enchanter Irving, "and never to rule over him."

 

He had heard that verse more times than he could possibly count.  So much so that they would almost mean nothing to him--just a jumble of syllables repeated again and again until they lost all significance--if they did not ultimately dictate that he was imprisoned in the Circle of Magi for the rest of his life.

 

"Thus spoke the prophet Andraste as she cast down the Tevinter Imperium, ruled by Mages who had brought the world to the edge of ruin.”

 

Only words, but they welded bars stronger than steel.

 

“Your magic is a gift," Greagoir allowed, "but it is also a curse.  For demons of the dream world--The Fade--are drawn to you, and seek to use _you_ ," and here he put an emphasis that made Surana's stomach churn, made him worry (for just a moment) that this was not to be his Harrowing at all, but his execution, "as a gateway to this world."

 

"This is why the Harrowing exists." First Enchanter Irving cut in, evacuating his post at Greagoir's side to stand by Eliysium and slip a hand around his student's shoulder.  "The ritual sends you into the Fade and there you will face a demon, armed with only your will."  Irving began to lead him towards the shining blue light.  The Knight-Commander catalogued their every step, but he did not move to halt them.

 

"This is lyrium," the First Enchanter introduced--as if Eliysium did not _already know that_ \--and together they ascended the subtle dais to peer into the glowing lyrium basin.

 

Surana felt the watchful eyes of a dozen Templars, plus the Knight-Commander who had trained them, raining down hard on both of their backs as they turned away from the rest of the room.  "Your gateway to the Fade."  Irving finished his introduction, and, under his breath, continued: "The Harrowing is a secret out of necessity, child.  Every Mage must go through this trial by fire."  Surana recognized First Enchanter Irving's bearing as the one he had been carrying about him for a fortnight--presumably how long he had known his ‘star pupil’ would be given this test, if the erratic nature of Eliysium's lessons had not been enough indication.  This close, it was easy to take note of the way his aged face dragged downwards anxiously, every wrinkle becoming pronounced with stress in a way Surana could nary account for seeing during the entirety of his apprenticeship at Kinloch Hold.

 

"As we succeeded, so shall you."  Irving willed.  "Keep your wits about you and remember the Fade is a realm of dreams.  The spirits may rule it...but your own will is _real_."

 

"The apprentice must go through this test **_alone_** , First Enchanter."  Greagoir rebuked pointedly.  The Templars began moving, closing in.  In the wake of the loud, synchronized clang of their armor, Surana could practically hear their reverent silence reverberate against the walls.  

 

A Mage could not afford to hesitate.  Not in Kinloch Hold.

 

"I'm ready."  Eliysium Surana said; and he was.

 

* * *

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you made it this long: wow, hey! It's been literal years since I've written fanfiction ( _have summaries always been this hard?_ ) and actually posted it so any constructive comments or just general feedback (here and as we move forward) would be genuinely appreciated! Thank. uwu


	2. The Harrowing

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter Warnings: There’s a very brief, one sentence mention of animal death/cruelty. Nothing explicit; literally on par with Shale’s dialogue about birds, but I thought I'd throw the warning out anyway.

 

* * *

 

 

A heady pulse beat behind his eyes.  It abated as he opened them, a momentary vertigo taking the forefront as his mind tried to compromise with itself as to whether he were lying or standing.  His throat burned and parched, a phantom reminder of some waking world pain.  A sensation akin to dizziness passed through him as he felt the world flip and bend to his will until he was standing on solid ground again.

 

He was wearing his apprentice robes.  Not the drab colored shift he wore to bed at night, the clothes he had been wearing in the Harrowing Chamber.  He recalled the sensation of the cold floor against his bare feet as the Templars had marched him up the stairs of the Tower and felt the surface of the Fade world grow cold in response.  Surana studied the spot where he stood with fascination, eyes glued downwards as minuscule ice crystals began to bloom around his moccasin clad feet, summoned by his thoughts of the chill that pervaded his waking world prison.  He had no doubt that the snowflakes beginning to gather around him could--and would--encase him, swallowing him up like so many doubts.

 

He stepped forward, surveying the Fade as it widened before him in a rolling fog.

 

The world was a mass of roots both thick and thin.  They tangled with each other, colliding upwards, where they met together like intertwined fingers, as if he were caught in the gnarled fist of some predator. The imagery reminded him of when he had been a child, back when he and the younger Mages had been regularly allowed outside for exercise.  One of the other apprentices had caught a bird in his hands, and Jowan had ushered Surana forward so they could both join the circle of children who had gathered.  They had all watched with hushed enthusiasm, then increasing horror, as their fellow apprentice slowly crushed the life out of the tiny songbird between his palms.  The hands around _Surana_ felt like they were tightening the more he reminisced.

 

Perhaps they were.

 

Tangled vines towered in every direction.   Occasionally he would find them erupted out of the ground in great arcs like tree roots rising from the soil.  The way forward, however, was always miraculously unobstructed, all hindrances gathered on the sidelines.  It appeared, for all intents and purposes, to be a dirt trail--rocky and uneven.  Yet his feet tread upon it as smoothly as glass. As if the path before him were only a reflection, and in truth he walked upon a mirror that was merely showing him the image of what he had once seen or imagined.

 

Whether it was by his will or the demon's that the road was so easy, he could not know.

 

Everything he saw had a way of shifting in his field of vision--one moment crispy defined and the next: hazy, as if a shroud of smoke had engulfed the world surrounding him.  His eyes were drawn to a particular cloud of shifting smoke up ahead, dancing as if it were made up of the tendrils of some exotic beast.  

 

The more he focused on it, the closer he found himself drawn to it.  Not by active movement, but by power of will.  As he glided closer, the smoke wrought itself into a shining figure, clad in armor hewn from silvery light.

 

“Another mortal thrown into the flames and left to burn, I see.”   

 

The booming voice of the creature held no gender to its timber.  Hearing it reminded Surana of the great iron bell on one of the top spires of the Tower more than it did of a person.  

 

Surana did not respond.  The figure did not appear as if it was waiting for him to.

 

“You Mages have devised a cowardly test.  Better you were pitted against each other to prove your mettle in a test of skill than to be sent unarmed against a demon.”  

 

Surana could not help but feel as if the spirit--or, potentially, demon--had missed the point.  He had been tested against his fellow apprentices since he had arrived at the Tower.  It was not the threat of _their_ influence which kept him locked inside of it.

 

“You are not the first to be sent here for such testing.  Nor shall you be the last, I suspect.”  The being did not acknowledge his lack of response.  It barely seemed to have acknowledged him at all, despite the fact that it was clearly talking to him.  “That you remain means that you have not yet defeated your hunter...”  Here, finally, it angled its head down at him, having to crane its neck down to properly stare at Surana’s comparatively diminutive form.  

 

Its eyes were bright, hollow sockets.  Gazing into them for even the briefest moment made him feel as if he were being weighed; though the scale by which he was being judged was a mystery.

 

Whatever it was, he was found worthy enough to talk to.

 

“I am Valor.  A warrior spirit.  I wish you a glorious battle to come.”

 

According to everything he had been taught, all creatures of the Fade--whether spirit or demon--were either outright or potentially dangerous.  Some spirits, however, were also useful.  “I have never heard of a Spirit of Valor before.  Though I have heard of other virtuous spirits who lend aid to especially powerful healers.  Is a Spirit of Valor similar?”

 

“I know little of your mortal ways.” Valor dismissed.  “And have never deigned to pierce the Veil.  I hone my weapons in search of the perfect expression of combat.”  Surana found his gaze drawn to the array of swords and staves jutting from the warrior spirit’s back.

 

Being armed when he faced the demon would certainly make the battle easier.

 

“How did you obtain these weapons?”  Surana asked, eyeing each in turn.

 

“They are brought into being by my Will.  I understand that in your World, Mages are the only ones who can will things into being.  Those mortals who cannot must lead such hollow, empty lives.”

 

From his view in the Circle Tower, it rarely seemed so simple.  He suspected the potential for a hollow life existed among everybody, Mages included.  Considering the way of the world?  Mages especially.

 

“Do you suppose I could learn to do that?  Summon a weapon to myself, or--rather, materialize one?”

 

“With time.  In this Realm everything that exists is the expression of a thought.  A Weapon is a single need for battle.  And my Will makes that need reality.”  The Spirit of Valor scrutinized him again. “Do you desire one of my weapons?  I will give one to you.  If you agree to duel me first.  Valor shall test your Mettle as it _should_ be tested.”

 

“...Suddenly, you sound like the demon…”

 

“How dare you accuse me--!  I am no demon preying on helpless mortals to steal their essence!  I am a being of Honor and Valor!  I am a Warrior…!”

 

“Yet was it not you making comment on unarmed Mages being sent into trials and battle mere moments ago?  You refuted The Harrowing as a ‘cowardly test’ but I fail to see how your own test is any different.”

 

 Surana doubted this was the demon he was meant to face.  But if it were the spirit it claimed, could it not be made to follow Surana’s will, with the right words?

 

“You are insolent,” the thing hissed at him, and it seemed to grow taller, like a venomous snake that had uncoiled and drawn itself into attack position.

 

Surana had to stop himself from taking a step back, forcing himself instead to gear back his shoulders, to try and draw himself physically taller in defiance of the threat presented to him.

 

“...But your Will is unquestionably strong…  Very well, mortal.  You prove to me that you possess the strength to resist this demon.  Go.  Prove your worth as you must.  I am confident you will succeed.”

 

With those last words, the Spirit of Valor was gone.  A dazzling staff was left in its place.

 

Surana walked on, an armed threat to the demon that awaited him unseen in the shadows.

 

Soon, he heard the quiet skittering of what sounded like claws tapping along with his steps.  Expecting that the demon he was meant to face had come to show itself now that he had made himself an armed threat, he readied himself for battle, feeling the thrum of his own mana spurring into action.  The sensation was familiar to him as his own heartbeat.  The rush of it flooding through him, through the staff he held in his hand, was a comfort.  

 

He turned, feeling the fire itching under his palms as it spread through the milky white staff beneath them, tainting it with the fierce red of heated metal.

 

But there was no monster lurking behind him.  

 

Instead, he was graced with the sight of a small rodent, scurrying ahead to meet his pace.  He stopped, bemused by the sight of it in spite of himself.  He racked his brain for a time he had ever seen a mouse in the Fade.

 

“Someone else thrown to the wolves.  As fresh and unprepared as ever…”

 

He racked his brain for a time he had ever seen a _talking_ mouse in the Fade.

 

The minuscule beast had come to rest at his feet.  It looked up at him with strangely intelligent eyes.  What manner of demon or spirit might wander the Fade in the form of a mouse, he wondered.  Shouldn’t they all be too... _proud_?

 

“It isn't right that they do this, the Templars, not to you--me--anyone--!”  The pest spoke, outrage ringing from a voice that seemed to come not from its mouth but from its very being.  Surana heard it as clearly as if he were speaking to another person who was standing right in front of him as opposed to an animal smaller than his feet.

 

“...Right or not, the only option before me is to proceed.”  Surana answered carefully.

 

He had been aware of his magic for as long as he could remember.  He had visited the Fade whilst completely aware of himself countless times.  When he had been a child he had amused himself in dreams by chasing small wisps and playing games of riddles with the ethereal beings from the Fade.  

 

That was before his apprenticeship to First Enchanter Irving.  He knew better now.  He knew to be cautious of any who sought him out. Who sought to speak with him.  No matter how small.

 

The Harrowing had reminded him, however, the merit of speaking to the right spirit.  His hand unconsciously clenched around the staff in his hand.  So long as he knew how to be careful...

 

The rodent snorted wordlessly, tiny nose twitching in the air.  “Of course you _would_ say that.  You don't know what can happen.”  A scoff.  “It’s always the same…  But it’s not your fault.  You’re in the same boat I was.  Aren't you?”

 

The figure of the rodent began warping, twisting shapes until a man stood before him instead.  “You can call me...well, Mouse.”

 

“I am Eliysium Surana,” he introduced himself.  “You...were an apprentice?  You took the Harrowing?”  He questioned, eyebrows raised in surprise as he began searching Mouse’s face in an attempt to match it with one of those he held in his memories.  When he thought of apprentices who he had once often seen and then, suddenly, did not...there were so many names and faces and incidents and _whispers_ of incidents.  It was hard to keep track.  The situation wasn't helped by the fact that Mouse looked so ordinary; sandy brown hair with a reddish undertone, bleak grey-ish eyes, skin wrinkled from stress, features nondescript and easily forgettable.  “How long ago?  What Circle are you from?”

 

And.  Didn’t a failed Harrowing always entail possession?

 

“I don't remember anything from...before.  I don't know how long it’s been…  When it was my Harrowing I--I ran away and I _hid_ .  The Templars kill you if you take too long, you see.  They figure you _failed_ .  And they don't want something getting out.  That’s what they did to me…  I think.  I have no body to reclaim,” Mouse mourned, “and you don't have much time before you end up the same.  You don't want to end up like... _this…_ ”

 

Had the Templars really done that?  Even as the thought crossed his mind he knew they were capable.  Knight-Commander Greagoir had long looked at him as a threat.  There would be no better time to rid Kinloch Hold of ‘Irving’s Star Pupil’ than now.  If the Knight-Commander had convinced himself that it was for the greater good that Surana did not survive then perhaps it was not inside the Fade, but outside of it, where his greatest threat lay.

 

“The demon has not shown itself to me.”  He hated the sound of consternation seeping into his voice.  “I have not seen it.”

 

“But I have!  ...I--I missed my chance...  So I became small.  Unnoticeable.  I hide from the bigger things...learn from the smaller things.  You’d be amazed at how often I can go unnoticed, even in the Fade.  There are places you can hide where the shadows go on forever…”  Mouse trailed off, a vacant look fogging his eyes.  “You stay there long enough and the shadows begin to...creep...inside of you…”

 

Mouse shook his head, knocking himself out of his stupor.  “You don't want to lose yourself here.  Being nothing would be easier than this.  That’s why...I’ll help you.  I’ll help lead you to the demon.  My chance was long ago, but you--you may have a way out…”

 

“You can direct me to the demon?”  He asked, intrigued.

 

“Uh...directions are...tough here…  I’ll tell you if we’re getting close.  How about that?”

 

The corner of his mouth tugged downwards.  

 

“It’s really no trouble, I’ve...helped a few other people. _I can help you_.  It’s...difficult to just hide while another apprentice is in the Fade.”

 

“There have been others?”

 

“I don't know how many.  Or...when…” Mouse looked wistful.  Surana found that he could not imagine yearning for the concept of time.  For him, a mortal Mage living in the Tower, it seemed to ebb and flow mindlessly.  Almost forgotten in its monotony.  For Mouse to miss that?  He must have been here for a long while.  “ I don't think everyone who takes The Harrowing comes here, to this place in the Fade.  Or maybe they do...and I’ve forgotten…”

 

“Is there anything you can remember?”  Surana asked, finally deigning to begin his trek.  To search out the Demon once more.  (And if his steps fell a little faster...well…)  Mouse followed along in human form without being asked.  “Or, perhaps, anything you could tell me about the Harrowing?”  He bit back his inquiries about the success rate of the others Mouse had helped.

 

“You have to face the creature, a demon, and resist it.  If you can.  That’s your way out--or your opponent’s--if the Templars wouldn't just _kill_ you.  A test for you; a tease for the creatures of the Fade.  But you would be a fool to just attack everything you see.”  Mouse glanced at his staff,as he had been doing intermittently when he seemed to believe Surana wouldn't care or notice.  “As I see you’ve already found.  That’s good.    _Smart_.  What you face is powerful.  Cunning.  You’ll need all the help you can get.”

 

“What about you?”  Surana, regarding Mouse with a determined expression.

 

“Wh--what about me?”  Mouse stumbled back, as if struck.  Surana saw him flicker in and out of existence, as if he were seconds away from becoming a rodent again.  Mouse had been walking oddly in his human form, all hunched over as if he were trying to make himself smaller, every step screaming that he was unsure what to do with his limbs.  Accounting for everything but his occasional outrage at the injustices of the Harrowing, Mouse was the very definition of skittish.

 

“You are leading me to the demon.  What happens when we are there?  Are you going to fight the demon along side me?”

 

Grey eyes widened.  “What?!  No, no of course not!  Don’t be ridiculous!  I’m just a mouse!  What chance would I possibly stand against a demon?!”

 

“You are not a mouse right now,” Surana pressed, “and you _said_ you wanted to help me.”

 

“I--!  Help you _find_ the demon, not--!”

 

“So you are going to run again?”  Surana challenged.  He could not imagine any Mage who would run during their Harrowing.  What was the point?  All they could do was move foreword.  Even when moving forward was little more than being dragged along in the current of your own life, at least you still had a life.  Or a shadow of one.  Which was more than he could say that Mouse had.

  
Mouse’s face contorted into rage.  Then, quickly, defeat.  He drooped on his feet, shoulders slumping inwards.  “I...I wasn't prepared.”  He defended.

 

So Mouse was one of those apprentices.  

 

Perhaps lazy.  Unfocused.

 

Or merely untalented.  Capable only of parlor tricks, but sent to the Tower anyway because law demanded it.

 

“Well, why were you not?”

 

Mouse’s head snapped up, his posture righting itself in anger.  “Because they’re sadistic Bastards, that's why!  And I’m not talking about demons... _Everyone_ must face the Harrowing because there’s a _small chance_ a Mage might become possessed and become an abomination!  Thrown to the mercy of a demon when you’re at your weakest!    _For the safety of all!_  

 

“They don't _want_ you prepared--if you can resist it when forced like this?  You can resist it any time.  It's either The Harrowing or they turn you into a _freak_.  A tranquil.  The Circle is a prison.  You have choices.  But they all lead to the same place.”  Mouse stopped to give him a long, meaningful look.  “Remember that.”

 

As if he could forget.

 

Failure loomed over them all like a hangman's noose, but success was little more than a temporary stay.  A sentence to be put back in a cell, knowing you could be back on the chopping block at any moment.

 

How does a person forget that he is living life on death row?

 

Perhaps he becomes accustomed to it.  Accepts it, even.  But he never forgets.

 

“We’re getting close.”

 

“Mouse.”  Said man looked back, posture notably miffed from Surana’s previous overstepping.  “You are not wrong.”  He said simply.

 

Mouse snorted.  “Of course I’m not.  You think being trapped in the Fade for all eternity doesn't lend a little perspective?”  The former rodent’s eyes searched his face.  “Something you could use a little more of, I think.”

 

Surana opened his mouth to object, but Mouse cut him off.  “Look.  Eliysium.”  A frown tugged at his lips.  No one called him by his first name.  People in Kinloch Hold found it, somehow, too difficult to pronounce.  He suspected that it was largely due to the fact that they found it particularly distasteful to wrap their tongues around the distinctly Tevinter syllables.  “I don't know how many other Apprentices I’ve seen take their Harrowing.  Enough that they all run together.  But you?”  His eyes flickered again to Valor’s staff, “You are something special.  You’re different than they are--you’ve got…!--you’ve got something they didn't have.  What it is, exactly, I don't know.  But you’ve lost sight of it.  You’ve let yourself think you have to play **their** game.  The Templars’ game.  The other Mages’ games, even.  But you don't.”

 

“You certainly have a lot of faith in me, considering you will not even agree to fight beside me when whatever blasted demon I am meant to be facing actually shows itself.”

 

Mouse crossed his arms, challenging.  “Oh, you think I don't mean it?  Fine.  Maybe I will...fight with you…”  He trailed off uncertainly, as if only just realizing what he had said.  Even the slightest action or suggestion could become a binding contract in the Fade, if one were not careful.  “Under one condition,” he rallied.

 

“...I am listening...”  Surana replied carefully.

 

“You just-- **think** \--about what I said.  That’s all I ask.  All right?”

 

Surana gave no reply, instead choosing to cross a bending bridge of roots.

 

He did not need to reply.

 

Finally, the demon had shown itself.

 

A disfigured, vaguely human shape lie in wait for them across the bridge.  Its skin bubbled like lava in some places, and in others, appeared charred like a burnt body.  It was large, but mostly in width, its form expanding and whirling like water swirled about in a clear glass jug. 

 

A ghastly sight.

 

But it did not strike fear into him as he had expected.  Confidence coursed through him in its place, making Valor’s staff shine with molten fire in his palms.

 

**“So it comes to me at last!  Soon I shall see the land of the living with your eyes, creature!  You shall me mine, body and soul.”**

 

“I doubt it.”  Surana responded simply.  “I am not about to be defeated by the likes of a demon now.”  His eyes slid to Mouse’s form.  To his delight, Mouse straightened.  His face took on a hard set ill befitting of the stuttering creature Surana had first met.

 

 **“Amusing…”**  Surana got the impression that the demon was smiling, though its features were inhuman and completely incapable of any identifiable expression, “ **Have you not told it of our arrangement, Mouse?”**

 

He kept his stance, poised to fight against the demon of Rage before him.  Doubt was weakness, and doubly so in the Fade.  He had a plan.  And it entailed that Mouse fight at his side.  He could not afford to feel unsure.

 

Mouse’s next words buffeted him.  “We don't have an arrangement--not any more!”

 

**“Awww.  And after all those wonderful meals we have shared. Now, suddenly the Mouse has changed the rules?”**

 

“I’m _not a Mouse now_ \--” he quoted, Surana’s own words ringing too easily through his mouth, “and soon I won't have to hide!”

 

 **“We shall see…”**  

 

The demon threw its first blow.

 

Surana held up his staff to block the resulting shockwave, an arc of fire bursting forth and falling against the very physical and very real wave of power that was the sound of the Rage Demon shrieking.  His surroundings shook with tremors.  His hands, by contrast, felt steady.

 

The clarity that only battle gave washed over him.  The magical earthquake abated.  He let his shield of fire fall, taking the opportunity to attack in the wake of the demon’s abated attack. Sparks rained down in a shower from his staff, attack striking true against the demon’s spiritual flesh.  The sizzling crack of burning filled his head.

 

The demon roared in response.  The black, crispy bits of its skin flared like embers in a hearth.

 

Surana’s body felt heavy with pressure underneath the weight of its scream.

 

But this was not the physical realm.  

 

While a spell cast with the intent to slow or crush an enemy would require a counter in the real world, here in the Fade he need only gather his Will and throw it off.

 

The creature stumbled back at the powerful push of Surana’s aura against its spell.

 

In the moment it was caught off guard, Surana watched as a powerful bolt of pure energy impaled it, slicing through to the other side and sticking out of its back like a needle through thread.  Struck by the development, Surana swept his eyes over to Mouse.

 

His formerly inept companion was pulsing with power, hands splayed wide in front of him up as Mouse channeled the magic of battle directly through himself.

 

Eyes caught on the spectacle, he did not see the incoming blow.  Without warning, he found himself spiraling across the ground.  The ache of deep, intrinsic wounds spread from his very core, the pain threatening to devour him.  His organs felt like they were full of hot coals as opposed to muscle and tissue.  For a long moment, the searing pain radiated through him, spreading as the blood rushed through his veins.  He gasped a deep breath, back arching grotesquely as he worked to draw air into the burning furnace of his lungs.

 

Failure.

 

Failure was not an option.

 

The Rage demon was quick to creep over to him, its very essence sliding over him.  

 

He was ready.

 

Clutching the icy hot metal of Valor’s weapon until his knuckles were winter white, he gathered all of his strength.  All of the thoughts and energy and _feelings_ he had stored in his mind--every ounce he had harvested through years of terrible training with Irving, of sneak trips to the library, of being forced to look away from every injustice or be miserable and perish, of wishing: _more than this, all of them were meant for more than this-_ -it all burst from him in a shattering cacophony of fiery blue.

 

The being of pure Rage wrenched back, huddling in on itself, shrinking and melting together until it was a mere half of its original size.

 

Mouse’s power crashed against it, causing it to whistle in pain, a gaping maw opening in its side and emitting a noise quite like a boiling teapot.

 

Surana got on his feet, raised his stave, and slashed through its waveringly corporeal form.

 

With that hit, the battle was over.

 

His eyes watched in silence as it slid through the Fade, away from the realms of existence.

 

Once again, Mouse’s voice wormed its way into his thoughts.

 

“You did it!  You actually did it…!  When you came I was hoping you might be able to--but I never really thought any of you were _worthy_!”

 

Surana’s gaze stayed stuck to the spot where the Rage demon had disappeared.  “What did it mean?  When it said there were others?”  Finally, the Mage looked up, pinning his former ally with an intense stare.  “Don't answer.”  He whispered, speaking more for himself than for anyone else.  “I already know the truth.  Did you lure other apprentices like this?”  His voice was steadily rising in volume.  “Is that the arrangement you had?  It hid itself away and _you--_ “ faces flashed in his mind.  People who he had seen everyday for years on end, suddenly gone one morning with no explanations given.  His word dried up, lost to the torrent of bile rising in his throat.

 

“Wha--?  They were not as _promising_ as you…!  It was a...a long time ago.  Aahhh, I don't remember their names.  I don't even remember _my own_ name--it’s--the Fade--and--the Templars killing me--!  They'd kill every Mage if they could!

 

“All the Templars see in magic is danger!  True Mages like _you_ know that the power you hold is a gateway to greater things!  A potential they can never hope to contain!

 

“It’s not right how they control us.  It’s not.  The Templars and the Chantry and all of it!  They have no _right_ to treat _true_ Mages this way!  You could stand up to them!  If they gave you the chance…

 

“With time, you will be a master enchanter with no equal!  And maybe there's hope in that for someone as small and as forgotten as me.  You saw how well we work together…  Don’t you want that again?  There may be a way for me to leave here.  To get a foothold outside.

 

“ **_You just need to want to let me in…_** ”

 

Surana took a step back.  Again and again be backed away as Mouse’s speech touched him mind, his posture screaming of his defensive status.  “I told you already.  I know the truth.  That Rage demon was not my test.”  He spoke, weapon at the ready as he regarded Mouse with great caution; finally satisfied with the distance between them and now using slow side steps to edge around the battlefield, he angled himself toward a position more ripe for battle.

 

“What?  What are you--of course it was!  What else is here that could harm an apprentice of _your_ potential?”  

 

Surana merely threw him a look in response, a silent askance of just how stupid the creature thought he was.

 

Mouse looked stricken.  Then, smiled, the leering grin of something wicked and demented.

 

“You are a _smart_ one.”

 

And with that, Mouse was not Mouse any more.

 

 **“Make no mistake, Mage.  I took no pleasure in feeding on scraps at the side of a lesser demon.  But those I led to slaughter?  Weak.  Fools.** **_Unworthy_ ** **.  Simple killing is a warrior's job.  The real dangers of the Fade are...preconceptions…”**

 

The demon was huge.  And everywhere.  Its voice was high pitched and low pitched and made up of every sound he had ever heard.

 

**“Careless trust…”**

 

His vision went black.

 

**“ P**

 

**R**

 

**I**

 

**D**

 

**E**

 

**.”**

 

...

 

 

The world was a blurred mass.  It was shifting, slowly.  New hues were appearing, separating themselves from the singular blur of color that was his entire field of vision, until finally there were distinct shades and shapes once again.  Abruptly, as the world around him took form, he found his focus on a single Templar poised above him, sword held unsheathed in his hands.  

 

This close, he could see the Templar trembling.  Or perhaps that was the effect of his own vision shaking around the edges.

 

They met eyes for a long moment.

 

The Templar’s shoulders dropped in audible relief.

 

As Surana forced himself up, the world swam about him.  The voices of the First Enchanter and Knight-Commander reached out from above a sea of water bearing down on him.

 

The demon’s last words to him echoed, louder than them--louder even than his own thoughts--

 

**_“Keep your wits about you, Mage…  True tests...never end.”_ **

 

* * *

 

 


	3. The Grey Warden

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In canon, the codex states that Mages are often laid up in bed for a week or two post-Harrowing. This and my own headcannons gave birth to what I've decided to dub "Fade/Harrowing Sickness". Sort of the side effect of being placed forcibly in the Fade that is little spoken of or explored, and sort of just accepted among Circle Mages as 'that awful, disassosiative feeling you get after being Harrowed'. And of course the utter exhaustion and etc. Harrowings, friends. Not fun.

 

* * *

 

 

Remnants of the Fade were still cloying up the walls of his mind, leaving Surana mentally stumbling in uncertainty.  Was it truly over?  Or was this just another area of the Fade, a new trial for him to maneuver?  His hands pressed against his sleeping pallet, pushing his weight up from the stuffed slab he had been laying on.  His elbows shook with the sudden effort of supporting his corporeal body.  His physical self felt so different from the one that wandered the Fade.  The world spun, adding to the feeling that his limbs had forgotten how to manage themselves.

 

In front of him stood Jowan.

 

Jowan sighed in relief.  “Thank Andraste.  I thought you’d never wake up.”

 

Surana bit back the remark that he didn't think Andraste had much to do with him still being here.  He shook his head to clear the lingering wisps of dreams from it instead, knowing Jowan would go on speaking without any input and much too groggy to stop him, besides.

 

“They carried you in this morning.  I didn't even hear them when they came to take you during the night.  If everyone hadn't woken to the sound of them bringing you back...we might never have known you’d left!”  An aspect of incredulity entered Jowan’s voice, raising it steadily louder until he was shushed by a fellow apprentice still in the dorms.  (He threw the both of them a nasty look.  Jowan bothered to look suitably apologetic in return, but said apprentice had already gone back to studying the book he had been so engrossed in.)

 

With a lowered voice: “So...was it really _that_ dangerous?  What was it like?”

 

Surana looked up at Jowan, studying him.  His blue eyes, pale face, and dark hair were a study in contrast--not only in terms of coloration but in the way the dreariness and the hope seemed to constantly war on his face.

 

“It was...harrowing.”

 

Just like that, the hopeful side of Jowan was submerged by one of his infamous childlike moods.  He knew, of course, the trouble that would be wrought down on the both of them should word spread that they had consorted about the details of Surana’s Harrowing.  It filled Surana with exasperation to know he would even think of it.

 

“But we’re _friends._ Just a little hint and I’ll stop asking!  ...You know some Mages never come back from their Harrowing.”  And here, Jowan kept his voice low for an entirely different reason.  Every Mage knew the dangers of The Harrowing.  The sudden disappearance of one apprentice or another, vanished during the night with no explanation given, was a common enough occurrence that few even questioned it.  Or, at least, dared to.

 

“No.”  Surana said, exasperation turning molten as his nerves were grated with Jowan’s wheedling.  He felt like he was reprimanding a child, keeping an intense line of direct eye contact until he was sure he had succeeded in looking firm enough in his stance.

 

It worked, and Jowan’s own eyes shied away.

 

“Everyone knew you would make it.”  Jowan murmured, eyes returning to scan across Surana with that familiar tinge of something closely related to resentment, the likes of which had slowly poisoned their childhood friendship, leaving it the hollow husk of a connection it was now.

 

Stares of distaste and jealously were a normal enough occurrence.  Surana rarely gave _those_ a second thought, but to steel his resolve to stay safe in the corridors.  None of them ever pierced him the way Jowan’s desperate looks did, when he watched Surana succeed while his own skills remained stagnant.  None of them cut into him during the night, when he willed himself not to count the beds that were empty and forced the thought down that, one day, he might wake to find the cot above his unoccupied as well.

 

“I would too.”  Jowan swore in a whisper.  “If they just gave me the chance.”

 

Surana did not pretend he could do anything.  Say anything.  What _would_ he do?  What time could he possibly set aside to tutor Jowan himself? What could he possibly say to one of the Senior Enchanters, to make them consider Jowan?

 

Surana moved a willowy hand to reassure him, but he could not find it in himself to close the distance and actually establish physical contact.  It was a half-hearted attempt at consolation, in several senses of the word.

 

His pale hand hung between them like a mortuary silence.

 

“I shouldn't waste your time with this.  Irving asked to see you.  I was supposed to tell you as soon as you woke up.”  Jowan derailed, expression dark as he turned his face away.

 

“What did he want?”

 

“I don't know.”  He muttered.  “You never know with Irving.”

 

Surana got up from the bed.  “I should go see him.”  Unspoken: ‘ _b_ _est not to keep the First Enchanter waiting.’_

 

Surana silently gathered a pair of his apprentice robes (plus the accompanying leggings) from the sparsely filled drawer pressed against the back of his and Jowan’s stacked cots, masterfully ignoring Jowan's kicked dog demeanor.

 

And, without a second thought, he left.

 

He stole away past one of the dividing walls to change, checking his reflection very briefly in a mirror once his robes were neatly in place.  As expected, his own face gazed back at him.  The same white hair that barely grazed his shoulders.  The same mouth, the same nose, the same pallid skin--when was the last time he’d had occasion ( _permission_ ) to go outside?  The same dark brown eyes, now rimmed with bruise like shadows brought on by the stress of going through a Harrowing.  The presence of the dark circles beneath his equally dark eyes, set against his deathly pale skin made him look like something a Necromancer ought to be stringing along.  

 

Which seemed fitting.  

 

As he also happened to _feel_ like death warmed over at the moment.

 

He half heartedly ran his fingers through his hair in an attempt to make himself look more presentable.  His hand caught in a large snarl against the first notch of his spine, so he grabbed a brush and quickly worked it out of the thick, curling waves of his hair before declaring his detour to the mirror an official success.  Eyeing his ill looking reflection one more time, he schooled away his frown, forcing his dark eyebrows to stop furrowing into a scowl.  Face impassive, he informed himself that _this_ was as good as it was going to get, for today.

 

The sooner he found Irving, the sooner he could-- _hopefully-_ -go back to sleep.

 

Everyone was staring at him as he made his way to the First Enchanter’s office.  News travelled fast in Kinloch Hold.  Some spoke to him, though none felt familiar enough to stop him, merely calling out their politely worded well wishes for his success as a Chantry recognized Mage.  Most shared Jowan’s sentiment that ‘of course he had made it through the Harrowing, they all knew he would’.  A few scoffed or turned their backs to him, suddenly immersed in quiet murmurings with each other or in finding a tome along the book-lined walls.  (Surana made a quiet note of their faces.  A fellow Mage could potentially be just as dangerous, if not more so, than any Templar.)

 

He climbed the steps upwards with a shameful amount of effort.  Waves of dizziness lapped at his mind’s borders.  Flashes of the previous night, of walking these same steps on the way to his Harrowing, were broadcasting in his brain.  A sudden sense of uncertainty danced along the edges of his consciousness, forcing him to halt his journey at the top of the staircase.

 

... _The Harrowing_ ….

 

... _The Harrowing_ …

 

The part of his mind that was still consciously aware of his surroundings was thankful he had chosen one of the back hallways so he could be alone as he experienced the effects of whatever breakdown he was currently suffering.

 

Could he be certain he was not _still_ experiencing his Harrowing?  At what point did he know that reality had returned to him, that he was not merely trapped in another illusion wrought by demons and the Fade?

 

At what point could he assure himself that his hollow shell of a life, his life that played at being a life, was real?

 

His hand touched the wall, but the grains of the stone against his palm felt desensitized.  As if he were feeling everything with a limb that he had cut off proper circulation to by sleeping on it wrong.  Was he touching a wall at all?  Had he moved his arm to brace himself, really?  Or merely thought about doing it?  Was he truly stumbling?  Or was he only lightheaded?

 

Something grabbed at him, two points of digging pressure against his shoulders.

 

The demon, probably.

 

If this was another test, then…

 

Warm, bright power flowed through him, setting his thoughts straight and shaking him from his stupor.

 

The source of the grip on him was not a demon, but another Mage.

 

The man’s hands squeezed lightly against his biceps.  The sensation was grounding.  A visceral relief, when he had been so lost in his own head just moments prior.  He was saying something, Surana realized belatedly.

 

“Are you alright?”  Concern laced his voice.

 

Abruptly, Surana recognized him.

 

“Yes,” Surana assured, touching a hand to his temple as if to ward off a headache.  “A bit tired, I’m afraid.”

 

“You’re bloody exhausted is what you are.”  His fellow Mage said incredulously.  “What in the name of Andraste’s holy knickers are you doing up and about so soon after your Harrowing?  You _should_ be on bed rest for at least a week.”

 

Surana shrugged out of Anders’ hold.  His hands fell without complaint, though he was still shooting Surana the token look of a Spirit Healer who had wandered across an apprentice endangering their own health (and potentially the health of others, as lack of self care often lead to miscast spells and explosions) by pushing themselves too hard.  

 

Except Surana wasn't an apprentice anymore.  And Anders, though older than him by a handful of years, was hardly a Senior Enchanter.

 

“First Enchanter Irving sent for me,” he said in way of an explanation.

 

Anders snorted.  Rolled his eyes.  “Of course he did.”  He looked Surana up and down before casting another Regeneration spell on him.  “There,” Anders waved him away, dismissing Surana as he shed all signs of concern and promptly went on his way downwards: “Take one for the road.  Maybe it will even keep you out of the sick room.  It’s cramped enough in there as it is, with half of our healers shipped off to Maker only knows where.  Not that I’m complaining about the fact that they had to let me out of solitary early to fill in the gaps, but the sudden immersion back into ' _p_ olite _'_ society does get a tad jarring.”  Surana stared after him, unable to took away from the walking spectacle that was Anders.  “Run along then!”  The man called from the bottom of the staircase, the smirk in his voice audible even as it was distorted by echoes, “We can't have _Irving’s Star Pupil_ slacking off!”

 

Surana slowly rotated his shoulders, testing the range of his previously-sore muscles.  Admittedly, he did feel a great deal better but he also found himself scowling at the nickname, lips curling downwards in distaste despite all of his attempts to keep his face passive.  

 

Shaking off the encounter, he climbed the last couple flights of stairs without incident.  (Thanks, likely, to Anders’ gifted mana running through him.  A begrudging thought.)

 

When he reached the top he heard the steady thrum of voices winding around the corner.  They were coming from the First Enchanter's sitting room.

 

_“Many have already gone to Ostagar.  Wynne, Uldred, and several of the Senior Mages.  We’ve committed enough of our own to this war effort.”_

 

_“Your own?  Since when have you felt such kinship with the Mages, Greagoir?  Or are you afraid to let the Mages out from under Chantry supervision, where they can actually use their Maker-given powers?”_

 

_“How dare you suggest--!”_

 

_“Gentlemen, please!...  Irving, someone is here to see you.”_

 

As he walked into the room, a hush fell over them all; Greagoir, Irving, and the owner of the last voice--an unfamiliar timbre that Surana had been unable to put a face to.  Now, seeing the face, he found himself lacking a name as well.

 

The tension in the air revealed that he had not been meant to hear their conversation.  At least, according to some.  Knight-Commander Greagoir’s jaw was clenched tightly shut, the Templar clearly holding in another round of arguments.  In direct juxtaposition, Irving looked almost pleased.  He, apparently, had no qualms about the fact that Surana had overheard.  The smug twinkle in his eyes suggested that he had probably wished for things to happen this way.  The door had been wide open, after all.

 

“Aah, if it isn't our new brother in the Circle.  Come, _child_.”  Irving beckoned him farther across the precipice.

 

Surana complied, having become very practiced at ignoring Irving’s diminutive epithets.

 

“This is--?” The stranger was studying Surana with a look of undisguised intrigue.  He was a human man, of medium height and build, with a vigilant countenance and dark hair swept back into a queue which he hadn't bothered to braid.  He had facial hair as well, a scruffily kept smattering of black hair covering his upper lip and jaw.  But the most interesting thing about him, by far, was his armor.  

 

The molded silverite metal was not entirely unlike a Templar’s armor to Surana’s untrained eyes (albeit lighter), but for the defining symbol stamped upon the chest.

 

A pair of Griffons.

 

“Yes, this is he.  Fastest Harrowing this Tower has ever seen.”

 

“Eliysium Surana,” he supplied, voice steady and cool.  Not at all the man who had been stumbling his way up the stairs moments prior.  In this pit of snakes, he couldn't afford to be.  “I am honored to meet you.”

 

Greagoir began an unceremonious retreat from the room, effectively cutting off the introduction.  “ _Well,_ Irving.  You are obviously busy.  We will discuss _this_ later.”  There was a clear promise in his tone.  A promise not to budge.  Whatever decision Greagoir had made before Surana had entered the room, it was set in stone.

 

The three of them watched him go, the stranger’s--the _Grey Warden’s-_ -eyes trailing after him with an indecipherable look.

 

First Enchanter Irving picked up the pieces of their broken introduction.  “Well then...ah, where was I?”  The fact that he was so clearly unruffled by Greagoir’s menacingly stern tone was something to be envious of, Surana had to allow the old man that.  “Oh, yes.  This is Duncan, of the Grey Wardens.  You’ve heard about the war brewing to the south, I expect?”  As if Irving himself hadn't doubled his battle training the moment the whispers had started.  Irving had already built and selected teams for the battlefield, had already introduced Surana to the team he would lead despite the fact he had not yet (at the time) been Harrowed.  “Duncan is recruiting Mages to join the King’s army at Ostagar.  King Cailan _himself_ has allied with the Wardens, to face down this troubling threat.”

 

And here, he had found the root of Irving’s latest ploy.  The reason for all this haste, Surana's sorry state in the wake of his Harrowing notwithstanding.  The First Enchanter would never be permitted to leave his Tower and join in the crusade.  His apprentice, on the other hand?  If he could secure a place for Surana on the outside, even if only briefly, Irving’s influence would not be limited to these walls alone.  Nor the walls of the College of Magi.  No, this was the chance for real, _political_ sway.

 

“With the Darkspawn invading,” Duncan spoke, “we need all the help we can get.  Especially from the Circle--the power you Mages wield is an asset to any army.  Your spells are very effective against large groups of mindless Darkspawn.  I fear if we don’t drive them back, we may see another Blight.”

 

“Duncan.”  Irving interjected.  “You worry the poor lad with talk of Blights and Darkspawn.  This is a happy day for him.”  In the same way Surana could not afford to show weakness, Irving could not afford to loosen his hold.

 

“We live in troubled times, my friend.”  Duncan responded austerely.  Surana almost wondered if this man could see though Irving the way he did.  If he sensed that Irving had cut him off, not out of concern for Surana’s emotional state, but rather for concern that the Warden might instill in him an objective that did not align with Irving’s own.  Assuming, of course, that the Knight-Commander could be persuaded to lengthen Surana’s leash enough for him to even go to Ostagar.  Which, judging by the way the Templar had stormed out, was unlikely.

 

“We should seize moments of levity--especially in troubled times.”  Irving told them both, before focusing on Surana.  “Your Harrowing is behind you--your phylactery has been sent to Denerim.  You are officially a Mage within the Circle of Magi,” and here, he grabbed a collection of things from off his desk--props to complete the ruse--so that he could pretend that he had not summoned Surana solely for the purpose of showing him off to Duncan like a prized war hound, “The gift of magic is looked upon with great suspicion and fear.  We must prove we are strong enough to handle our power responsibly.  You have done this.  I present you with your robe, your staff, and a ring--bearing the Circle’s insignia.  Wear them proudly, for you have earned them.”  His face morphed into that of the concerned father figure.  “Now, it goes without saying that you should take your time to rest--or study in the library. The day is yours.”

 

Surana might have scoffed.  It had not escaped his notice that Irving had given him--quite explicitly--only a single day.  He _might_ have scoffed, but in order to muster that kind of response he would have to be surprised.  His head pounded, irritation and weariness playing a one-note song against his temples.

 

Duncan, apparently tired of being a bystander, excused himself, “I will return to my quarters.”

 

Irving smiled in the only way he truly knew how.  Calculated.  Carefully crafted.  “Would you be so kind as to escort Duncan back to his room, child?”

 

So.  Irving wanted him to impress the Grey Warden.

 

It was just as well.  

 

Surana was forced to dance to Irving’s tune the same as anyone else was.  Being aware of the music did not change the reality of it.

 

“It would be my pleasure.”

 

…

 

“Thank you for walking with me.  I am glad for the company.”  Duncan spoke as they walked through the spiraling hallways of the Circle Tower.”

 

“Again, it is my pleasure.  I had never thought I would get the chance to meet a Warden of the Grey, so I cannot consider it anything but an honor.”  Carefully rehearsed lines, though they rang more true now than they had when meeting visiting Senior Enchanters from various other Circles.

 

“We are more common than you might expect--though, still fewer than what we will need.”  No words on Surana's inordinate politeness.  Duncan, it seemed was a man immune to idle flattery.  Surana dared to wonder what sort of background he had come from.  Many Wardens, they said, had once been murderers and thieves.  Duncan was grand, undoubtedly, and sure, but Surana could not picture him having come from the nestled life of a noble.  As if to prove this, the Warden asked, without preamble or apology: “What was your name, again?”

 

“Surana is adequate, ser.”

 

Duncan raised a brow.  “I could not help but note your given name sounded Tevene…?” he trailed off.

 

“Yes.”  When the question inevitably surfaced, he had learned, through trial and error, that a simple answer worked best.  Not a denial, not an acknowledgment of any unspoken accusations.  Just a simple affirmative.

 

“Were you from Tevinter, originally?  Before you came to the Circle.”

 

“No, ser.  An Alianage in Highever.  My father was from Tevinter, if memory serves.”  Quick, precise answers.  A common enough line of questioning, he need not even think about how he was going to phrase his riposte.

 

“If memory serves?  You are not in contact with your family?”

 

“No.”

 

“I see.”  Duncan looked at him; blessedly, there was no pity in his eyes.  Most of the Circle’s inhabitants had little or no contact with their relatives, though he understood that Kinloch Hold was relatively lax in that missives were allowed to be exchanged at all, if the circumstances were right.  Just last Summer a new initiate had come to them, the son of some minor lord, and now every month came a letter along with a cart full of textiles and other goods.  Sending letters to an alienage, where no one would have the money (and few the education) to so much as write back would not prove nearly as profitable.

 

“Do you enjoy it here?  Are you satisfied in staying?”

 

A chill went down Surana’s spine, the prickle not unlike the delicately balanced edge of a knife against his skin.  He was being invited into a precarious conversation, at best.  He could not stop himself from picking out the Templars as they passed, more aware of their presence than usual.  Did Duncan’s line of questioning matter when he _could not leave?_  “I...” he began lamely, unsure how to answer, before finding himself again.  He had a goal, after all, though it was not his own.  “I would _like_ to join the King’s army, at Ostagar,” he dodged the true meaning of the question.  “Though I have my doubts that Knight-Commander Greagoir would allow me to go.  As an apprentice, I was not permitted beyond the Tower grounds.  Despite having now passed my Harrowing, a period of, shall we say, contemplation is traditionally enacted, before I can be summoned elsewhere.“  Not to mention Greagoir’s adamant distrust of him--of all Mages.

 

“At times, tradition must be bent in the face of circumstance.”

 

Surana could have smiled.  He felt the makings of amusement tugging at his lips, but he kept his countenance firmly set.  “Ser Warden, I do believe you are encroaching upon blasphemous territory.”  He kept his voice serious, eyes ahead so as not to betray his entertainment, and let Duncan (and anyone listening) interpret him as joking or earnest as he saw fit.  It was the safer route.

 

Duncan sighed, suddenly tired as he and Surana stopped outside the door to his guest quarters.  He waved Surana in, and he went with only cursory hesitation, curious to see what the Warden might be willing to impart behind closed doors.  Not that they meant very much, in the Circle.  “Greagoir is a good man.  I respect the strength of his convictions.  However, when the King sent out the call the Circle of Ferelden sent only seven Mages to answer.  This is why I asked King Cailan’s permission to come seek a greater commitment from the Circle.  I hope to place a Mage or two in every contingent.  Mages will make all the difference in this battle--the Darkspawn have their own magic, and our resources _must_ exceed theirs.  Any Mages who join the King’s army can unleash their full power on the Darkspawn.  In fact, I’m counting on it.  Greagoir may be afraid of what will happen.  What if the Mages decide they no longer want to be governed by the Chantry?”

 

“...That would depend on who you ask,” Surana supplied gingerly.

 

“They concern themselves overmuch with the threat of Blood Mages, Abominations…  But the Darkspawn are the greater threat.  It takes _decades_ for the world to recover from a Blight.  I wish the Chantry could see that.  We must stop at **_nothing_ ** to stop this invasion, before it is too late.”  Duncan sighed again, shaking his head.  When he looked at Surana again, some of the intensity in his face had faded, dulled down to a quiet spark of certainty, though the lingering promise of a fire was still in his eyes.  “Aah, listen to me...an old man’s rantings can’t be very interesting...”

 

Alas, the ramblings of old men had very well characterized the majority of Surana’s life.  “No,” he assured, though the feeling of disquiet that had fallen over him wavered in his voice.  “I...am glad we had this conversation.”  Too unsure.  "I was glad to listen," he rephrased, though it filled his head with pervasive thoughts he often preferred not to think about.  The idea of the Chantry loosening its grip was laughable at best.  Suicidal at worst.

 

Tempting, just the same.

 

He wondered if the demon was still in his head.

 

Duncan laughed, the sound genuinely mirthful as if he were unaware of the upset he had created in Surana’s life.  “You are too kind.  But I am sure you must take your leave now.”  He eyed Surana in that way he did, scrutinizing and something else the Mage couldn’t place.

 

“Yes,” he agreed readily, already feeling the threat of teetering on his feet from exhaustion creep up on him again.  To feel this worn so soon after having Anders cast two Regeneration spells on him was an obvious sign that he needed to let his body rest, allow his own constitution to run its course and fix what Magic alone could not.  “I am afraid I have matters to which I must attend.”

 

As he shut the door, Surana wondered how long Duncan would be a guest at Kinloch Hold.  He wondered how he would feel when he watched the Grey Warden leave, inevitably, without him.  He wondered if it would feel like unsent letters to an Alienage, in Highever.

 

* * *

_~~~~_

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1\. I posted this on mobile, and it's unedited so hopefully formatting and etc. is okay...
> 
> 2\. This chapter and the next two were originally one but then A) it took too long and B) the word count was getting a little ridiculous.
> 
> 3\. Am I the only one who played the game and, when you wake up from the Harrowing, briefly thought how cool it would be if it was still going, maybe? Just a thought.


	4. Jowan

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The warnings changed a little bit, just as a heads up. Mind those tags, friends. There is (non-graphic) implied/referenced/attempted sexual assault, a house fire, and a brief mention of suicide in this chapter. Be safe, etc.

 

 

* * *

 

The silence was deafening in his new quarters.  

 

No muffled voices or heavy snoring to act as a white noise lullaby.  It was unnerving, sleeping without the constant presence of dozens of apprentices beside him, without the sound of Jowan tossing and turning in the cot above him, but, with exhaustion as his guide,  he slipped into the Fade, asleep.

 

His travels there blurred.  He wandered aimlessly, searching for nothing in a world of nowhere.

 

He walked, unbothered, through the Fade.

 

The sound of feet approaching was soft, but for the sake of the silence and his post-Harrowinh wariness it may as well have been an entire battalion of Templars approaching.

 

Surana’s eyes flew open, his shock and fear taking precedence over the idea of feigning sleep, as he had done many times over the years, when a meandering Templar or vicious apprentice wandered far too close to his bedside at night.

 

Though, in truth, it was neither of these things that he expected.

 

He expected the Demon.  What he saw, hiding in the long shadows of the walls,  was Jowan.

 

“I need to talk to you.”  He whispered, urgent.

 

Eyebrows perked in annoyance at this unexpected turn, heart playing a scattered beat of adrenaline.  Surana found himself scowling.  He could feel the comfortable embrace of sleep lifting away, and exhaustion coming to fill the space where its arms had once held him.  “You _really_ couldn’t sleep without me for one night, Jowan?”  He snapped, the image of a parent scolding a child who was far too old to be squirreling away in their bed on account of nightmares.  His estimation of time had been thrown off by the Harrowing, but there were clues--the darkness of the hallways, the quiet hush of Mages in bed and Templars on surveillance--that led him to surmise it was well into the night.  Jowan had no business being about at this hour.  (Not that that had been stopping him lately.  Surana had woken countless times to Jowan sneaking off these past few months.)

 

His fellow Mage laughed dryly, murmuring a quiet: “Very funny…” that set Surana’s teeth on edge.  Now that he was looking, Jowan's expression was far too dark, far too troubled for comfort.  They stood in silence, Surana rising out of the bed and setting aside the covers, waiting quietly for Jowan to offer an explanation for his late night visit.

 

The silence stretched out far too long.  “You’re starting to worry me, Jowan.”

 

“I’ve been...troubled…  I’ll explain.  Come with me, please.”

 

It was a testament of how much he trusted Jowan that he did not hesitate.

 

The two of them snuck quietly down the stairs, feet sure on the steep stone.  They dodged the guards expertly, neither of them strangers to the occasional foray through the hallways past curfew.  Muscle memory nearly took him to the library, his usual haunt when he either couldn’t sleep or had some extra studying to do, but Jowan turned in quite a different direction.

 

“We should be safe here.”

 

Decorative arches spread above them, the architecture grand and opulently upheld in the most colorful room the Tower had to offer.  Still, Surana hated it.  He raised a sceptical eyebrow at Jowan.  “The _Chapel_ ?” Safe wasn't the first word that came to mind…  He opened his mouth to protest further when the sudden appearance of one of the Chantry sisters from behind the pews had him stopping in his tracks.  He was cycling through clever remarks, trying to ignore the cold hand of dread squeezing around his throat, when the newcomer surprised him by stepping soundlessly to Jowan's side, speaking to the two of them all the while.

 

“ _We can see the door from here_.  If anyone comes, we’ll change the subject.  I will tell them that we are holding a midnight vigil.”  She whispered quietly.  She had a vaguely familiar face; fair, freckled skin and brown hair pleated into one of the conservative updos commonly worn by Chantry sisters.

 

Jowan licked his lips nervously, watching Surana’s shell shocked expression carefully.  “A few months ago I told you that I...met a girl…” he started slowly.  “This is Lily.”

 

Surana’s jaw actually dropped.  He looked between the two of them, assured that his hearing had been mistaken.  Was it Feast Day already?  Yet, even as his brain offered explanation after explanation he knew that Jowan was telling the truth.  Finally, he found his voice.

 

“An _initiate_ ?  Jowan, are you **serious**?” 

 

Jowan looked affronted, and Surana watched as he set his shoulders, clearly gearing up to say something.  Lily, who Surana had (quite purposefully) not acknowledged directly, surprised him by stepping in as the peacekeeper.  Calmly, she set a hand on Jowan's shoulder, cutting him off with her even, whispered tone.  “So you can see why we wish to keep this a secret.”  She side eyed Jowan, a little reproaching.  Clearly they had discussed telling him at length.  And it isn't going as planned.

 

When Jowan is involved, it never does.

 

Jowan cleared his throat, seemingly trying his best to put himself together and diffuse the tension. “Lily’s been given to the Chantry.  She’s not allowed to have...relations.  If anyone finds out, we’ll both be in trouble.”

 

 _As will I, if they find that you’ve told me,_ comes the unbidden thought.  Surana purses his lips, beating back against his own mind.  Holding the ideas swirling around in his head, letting the notion of turning them in for his own safety run across his palate, tasting it.  And finally, he lets out the tension in his lungs, forgets the taste of bitterness, forces himself to relax as he lets out a long, quiet breath.  “Did you bring me here just to talk about your affair?” he offers, the words blunt but without the true bite of scorn.

 

“I wish that was the only thing I needed to talk about…  Remember how I said that they weren’t giving me a chance for my Harrowing?”  Jowan starts, and Surana can see the vein against his temple throbbing, “Well...it’s true.  And I know _why._  They’re going to make me T _ranquil!_ They’ll take everything that I am from me!  My dreams, hopes, fears, my love for Lily!  All gone.  I’ll just be a husk!  Breathing and existing but not truly living!”  By now he was wailing, voice barely quiet enough to be contained in the room.  Lily shushed him, her hand clasped more tightly around his shoulder, the loving look in her eyes sickening.

 

Cold.  Dread.  “...This is not a speculation you should be making lightly, Jowan.”  Surana said lowly, fighting against the urge to dissect every shadow.  He suddenly felt...very watched.

 

“I’m **_not_ ** !”  Jowan exploded.  “I need to escape, I need to destroy my phylactery!  Without it, they can’t track me down!  I need your help, Surana!    _We_ need it.  Lily and I can’t do this on our own.”

 

He shook his head, disbelieving. “I can’t believe you’ve dragged me into this, Jowan.”

 

His only friend (if you could still call them that) looked furiously at him.

 

“Give us your word,” Lily interjected, “that you will not tell anyone.  If you plan to help, we will tell you what we intend.  If not, please: keep this a secret.  I understand if you are reluctant, if you refuse, but I can only _beg_ that you won’t violate our trust.  Our lives depend on your silence.”

 

Surana turned away from her probing eyes, something far too close to anger welling up inside of him, though at whom--at what--he could not say.  Or perhaps he could not make himself acknowledge the truth of it.  

 

“Why would they do this to you?” he implored Jowan, willing him to speak truthfully.  “You’re not...!  But they’ve suffered Mages who did not show inherent proficiency to take the Harrowing before…!”

 

Jowan grimaced, but he did not otherwise acknowledge the implied insult.  “...There’s a rumor about me.  They say I’m practicing Blood Magic.  They think that making me a Circle Mage will endanger everyone.”

 

“...”

 

Surana had heard the rumor.  Whispers on the wind that the Templars suspected _someone_ of practicing Blood Magic (the threat of wars and Blights and tumultuous times ahead did that to people; Templars especially).  Mulling it over, he realized that perhaps Jowan’s sneaking about had placed him on the list of suspects.   _He_ knew, of course, that Jowan’s late night excursions were to meet a woman--because Jowan had _told him as much_.  But to anyone else, perhaps it had seemed…

 

People did not _like_ Jowan so much as tolerate him.  Still, he was a permanent fixture of the Tower, a part of its innerworkings and its structure and its _being_ that his existence seemed, to Surana, immutable and inseparable from his life there.  He was like the cracked pillar in the common area, something that people passed everyday, taking a moment to pick at the imperfection of it, but ultimately a presence that was appreciated once they took their eyes off it.

 

He could not imagine that a rumor and a few unaccounted for hours would be enough cause for the Rite of Tranquillity, without anything more conclusive to back it up.  Doubt sprouted.  Jowan did always have a tendency for dramatics, always overreacting--

 

His denial must have showed on his face, because Lily was back, again, steering the conversation the same way her Chantry had steered his entire life.  “I saw the document on Greagoir’s table.  It authorized the Rite on Jowan.”  His yes flickered up to meet hers.  There was no lie in them, no matter how deeply he dug.  “And Irving had signed it.”

 

It should not have felt like a betrayal.  He held no love for Irving.  He knew his cruelties, his coldness, perhaps better than anyone in the Circle Tower who was not currently confined to the dungeons.

 

He felt the dangerous burn of bile in his esophagus.  “....I have to think about this.  I can’t...I can’t...” Bile.  He felt nauseous.  He was faced, for the first time, with the possibility that his dilapidated pillar would collapse, and the world would come tumbling down over his head.

 

“...I suppose that’s fair enough.”  Lily acquiesced.  Jowan looked sullen as he stood, completely silent, letting Lily speak for him.  She, at least, was patient, though Surana could see the fraying edges of her calm in her shaking, clasped hands.  She did not expect him to lay his whole life on the line for their chance at escape.  It was more reasonable than Jowan was being, crossing his arms and fading away into the corner, but for once the reason of it all was lost on him.  He felt...offended, almost, by her measured, practiced, response to his own unwillingness. “But please, give us your answer soon.  Time is running out.  And may the Maker watch over you.”  

 

She had no expectations of him, Surana realized.

 

Jowan, at least, believed in the best of him.

 

Perhaps, Surana thought, as he climbed the stairs back to his bed, their whispers echoing in his ears, he was the only who did.

 

He layed down and closed his eyes.  He slept.  In the grand, melodramatic stories told by Bards he may have lain awake all night.  But he slept.

 

. . .

 

The next morning found him in the library.  He trudged through a long line of other mages to collect his breakfast from one of the kitchen Tranquil.  He willed himself not to seek out Jowan’s face, but when he inevitably lost his own internal battle, he could not find the man anywhere.  Surana ate the thick, tasteless porridge, entirely uninterested in his meal but knowing that skipping breakfast would only slow his recovery.  He was half tempted to march to the sick bay and ask for something that would make his mind go fuzzy around the edges, send him to sleep, or at least make his skin less clammy, but he knew he would need what brainpower he could muster to sort through this conundrum.  (He feared, secretly, that if he did so, and slept, that by the time he woke up it would be too late.  Another choice stolen from him, and knowing that it would be taken by his own hand, by his own _inability towards action,_ made it worse.)

 

Surana was already implicit in their affair, strictly speaking.  

 

The very act of **knowing** was enough to earn him an private interrogation, and he secured that fate, lengthening the sentence, the longer he failed to report Jowan’s trespass to anyone.

 

The idea of helping was positively ludicrous.  He could destroy everything he had worked so hard to build for himself.  Every hour of suffering, every drop of blood he had shed in training, every tiny eternity he had subjected himself to under Irving’s torturous tutelage.  He was destroying all of it with every second he wasted.

 

And yet, he did nothing.

 

He always did nothing, pulled along by the tide.

 

He walked to the library, a slave to his own inner-monologue, and plucked a book off the shelf at random, knowing he did not have the concentration at hand to read it anyway.

 

He was half-heartedly looking through _The Complete Compendium of Poisons and Anticdotes_ when a jarring _slam!_ startled him out of his stupor.  Glancing up, he saw that someone had dropped a copy of Ines Arancia’s _Botanical Compendium_ , easily one of the thickest volumes housed in the library, on the table in front of him.  

 

That ‘someone’ was Anders.

 

“You have the book I need,” Anders supplied helpfully, pulling out the chair across from him and settling into it, hauty movements more fitting to a prince than a prisoner.  Casually, he retrieved an apple from his robes.  Surana opened his mouth to point out that they weren’t allowed to have any food outside the dining hall, but the sentiment died on his lips as quickly as it came to him.  Wordlessly, he closed the book and slid it over until it bumped into the tome Anders had dropped to get his attention.

 

“Oh, feel free to finish up whatever it was you were doing first.” the blond said around a mouthful of fruit.  “ _Believe me_ , I am in no hurry to return to the nickering in the Infirmary.  Say what you will about Wynne, at least she doesn’t begin every morning loudly reciting the Canticle of Light like Senior Enchanter Petrice does.  As if I we all haven’t heard enough of the damn thing.”

 

“I was finished with it, but thank you for the concern.”  Surana replied curtly.  

 

Anders gave him a long stare in return, no longer hiding his healer’s interest in Surana’s state.  “Admittedly, I hadn’t intended on doing a follow up, but I have to confide that you are infinitely more interesting than my _appointed_ task of restocking the Infirmary’s steadily declining store of potions.”

 

Anders leaned in, voice taking on a softer tone, “How are you feeling?”

 

“Do I look unwell?”  Surana asked, heart picking up a beat as he thought, inexorably, that Anders, with all his experience in attempted escapes, must have some hidden sense for rooting out people who were potentially involved in one.

 

“You _look_ like you’re tromping about your normal business not two days after your Harrowing.”  His voice was matter of fact, but his face was pinched, as if he was straining.  His healer’s instincts were stronger than his need to keep up his uncaring facade, Surana guessed.  He offered a small smile in response, an unspoken word of thanks.  Anders accepted it gracefully, grinning charmingly back at him and setting the apple core he held in his hand aflame, burning away the evidence of his misdeed.

 

Evidence eradicated, the Spirit Healer sighed, reaching over with his still too-warm fingers and patting Surana’s hand consolingly.  “Don’t worry.  You still look pretty as peaches, darling.”

 

Surana snatched his hand back, scowling as he set it into his lap.

 

Anders laughed amicably, murmuring something about hilarious prudishness, and plucked the compendium from off the table, opening it and perusing idly through the list of draughts and potions.

 

They settled into a comfortable silence (just as soon as Surana was convinced the blond wasn’t about to try any more funny business), the gentle turn of pages and soft scratches of writing the only sounds to punctuate their companionship.  Surana lost himself in the books around him, mind escaping into other worlds filled with possibilities, where plants grew from the ground as opposed to little pots set in the sun.

 

There was a garden of sorts in the courtyard, crops to feed the Tower’s inhabitants, but Surana’s powers weren't relevant to the work so he hadn't been permitted there since he became too old and too dangerous to be trusted with outdoor chores.  As a child, he remembered being filed out into the Summer heat to weed and plant and do farmwork.  It all seemed like a distant dream now, now that he lived a life more or less confined indoors.

 

He remembered, idly, as he read without _reading_ , that Jowan had mentioned those days, had mentioned _farming_ several weeks ago as they both sat down for a vegetable-filled stew at supper.

 

 _‘I’d like to live like that,’_ he had said to Surana, listing off an abundance of crops he would grow, in a small spot of land on the outskirts of some unknown town.  Surana had asked him in return if he even knew the first thing about growing and harvesting food, effectively shutting Jowan up for the duration of the meal.    All he could remember thinking at the time was how much he wished Jowan would just be quiet, would just let him eat in peace as his hands trembled embarrassingly, sloshing half-spoonfuls of soup back into his bowl messily with every bite, nerves still shot from the entropy spell Irving had cast on him during battle training that afternoon.  Maker, he was such a fool.  It would have been so obvious to him if he’d been listening.  How long had Jowan been planning an escape?  Was the Rite of Tranquility the cause?  Or merely the conduit for a choice already made?

 

“Why do you do it Anders?”  Surana broke the silence, wondering aloud what he had never dared to so much as _think_.  “Why keep trying to get out of here?”

 

Anders looked up from his book, a startled expression settling onto his face for a mere second before it warped into something unreadable.  Sighing, the man closed the book before him.  He did it much more quietly than Surana expected.  Anders moved with such care, something soft and tired woven into every gesture, when he wasn't brandishing his demon-may-care attitude in front of him like a shield.  He looked around the two of them, so subtle that Surana might not have caught him inspecting the room for listening ears if he had not been right in front of him.  A master among masters of not being seen, as his reputation would imply.  Earnestly, he prodded: “Do you like it here, Surana?”

 

He frowned.

 

How was he supposed to answer that?

 

Anders put his hand over Surana’s again, though, this time, he did not pull away.  He looked at the place where their skin touched, the action seeming so foreign to him.  He never noticed how often he avoided touching others and being touched until he found himself experiencing it.  Never realized how completely disconnected he often felt from everything until someone made that point of contact, that glimmer of something real beyond the haze of his everyday life.  

 

He felt removed from himself, almost.  Too big for the bones and the body he lived in.  Like he was watching himself have this conversation with Anders from somewhere else, somewhere far above the place he physically sat.  He found himself thinking about how lithe and small his hand looked.  In some dissonant place in his brain, he compared the two of them: sturdy, freckled hands made up of blunt, thick human bones and dusted with a light smattering of blonde-red hair versus his long, thin fingers, bones like a vulture, skin a deathly white dove with nails clean and neat.  Anders’ own nails were a mess, bitten down to the quick, broken and bent into a terrible state, with a faint smattering of blood coming to the surface around the cuticles.  

 

“Is there a choice?”  Surana whispered, and the voice was his, but ten years too young.

 

The pads of Anders’ fingers, when they touched Surana’s skin, felt scarred.  His nails looked like he had been scrabbling, scratching against something.  Damaged like he had been struggling against something, fingernails dragging across stone walls in an empty room, biting them down to the beds in frustration as they grew back, only to renew his struggle against the prison holding him.  

 

To no avail.  An endless cycle.

 

He slipped his fingers out from beneath Anders’ own, ignoring the intense look in his amber eyes.  As he got up, claiming tiredness, he ignored the fact that the draught Anders had the book opened to was not a healing potion as he had claimed he had been looking for.

 

As he left the room with Anders’ heavy stare against his back and his unspoken answer in his ears, Surana hoped they wouldn’t catch him this time.

 

…

 

 _The Tower is dark._  He is an elf, with eyes that see in the dark, but the shadows that Kinloch Hold have to offer loom too dark and too deep for him to see through.  There are corners and alcoves for all manner of horrors to hide in.  The air is stuffy and stale here, like every breath he takes in has already been breathed a thousand times.  The air in his lungs is recycled, has already been in someone else’s lungs.  They are all breathing in the refuge of an innumerable amount of death sighs.  The taste on his tongue is the bitterness of old tears and a thousand death rattles.

 

He wanders.

 

He is home and not.

 

He is old and young.

 

He is living and dead.

 

He is _dreaming_ , he is…

 

 _He is a small Elven boy tucked into a corner._  Above him loom rows and rows of tall apartment beds.  They are made of wooden pillars and cloth, strung on a palette so thin they are little more than stacked hammocks with step ladders.  The beds are for the adults and older children, but Eliysium slept on the floor at home so the lack of sleeping accommodations does not faze him.  His accommodations are much the same thing that he is already used to--a threadbare blanket and a lumpy cushion--but the atmosphere of this place makes it impossible to find the same comfort.  It is impossible for him to lull himself to sleep to the constant wailing of other children the way he once found rest in the sound of his mother’s voice.  
  
He, too, is crying.  He is a child who has broken a promise and he is being punished for it.  He hears his mother’s screaming, still, even when he covers his ears.  He sees his father’s face, a look too poignant, too nuanced for him to understand at his age, but he understands the sharp edge of fear.  He cries quietly.  He does not dare to raise his voice, to draw attention to himself.  The hulking figures-- _the_ _shining armored monsters_ \--the _Templars_ who brought him to this unfamiliar place have already proven that they are not afraid to beat him.

 

He cowers into himself when he feels a hand on his back.  If he can become smaller, work himself into a tiny ball, he can blink out of existence.  

 

He can disappear, some place where the Templars can’t find him again.  Somewhere away from the gaze of the human woman with the cold, impersonal eyes who harshly wiped the blood from his face as she muttered something about how the ‘knife ears’ are ‘always so filthy when they bring them’.  They’ve shorn off his hair and scrubbed him until all of his skin is a burning red color and dug harshly under his nails for dirt and stolen his clothes and replaced them with a dress that is too big for him and _what more can they want from him?_

 

He resolves to ignore the person touching him, to pretend they aren’t there but he is six years old and the form looming over his is also child-sized, the hand tugging at ( **_not_ ** ) his clothing too small to be threatening.  He cracks open his eyes.  His vision is blurry, but he can make out the figure of a crookedly smiling boy, bright eyed with messy coal colored hair.  He sees Eliysium looking up and him and his smile widens.  He is missing teeth, his grin comically empty in places.

 

“I’m Jowan,” he says.

 

He has a tray set beside him, adorned with two bowls of watery looking soup.  Much of the contents have splashed over the side of the bowls, the lukewarm liquid pooling onto the tray as it the slight boy had been made to carry it over himself.

 

Eilysium sniffs, loudly, still crying.  But he is hungry and lonely so he smiles back.

 

 _It is cold in Highever, as cold as it ever gets this close to the sea._  This is his fifth Winter, or so they tell him, but he does not understand the chill that falls over the alienage this time of year.  His memory does not reach very far back, and he doesn’t utilize much time reminiscing when there are so many _new_ things for him to experience, but he cannot remember ever feeling _cold_ the way the adults tell him he must.  There is an old woman who lives with him and mother and father (they tell him she is his _mother’s mother_ which is _insane_ and _impossible_ because his mother is _his mother_ and the thought that she is anything else is _too big_ of an idea for him to parse) who he calls grandmama and she tells him that he is hot blooded.  

 

She says it to him with a look in her eyes that no one else ever gives him.  Something intense.  He decides that he likes her.

 

His mother puts a pot of water on to boil, same as she does every night.

 

Grandmama waits until the water boils and places a satchel of leaves and bark into it.  Mama puts on a lot of pots to boil during the day, too, because other people from the alienage come to visit grandmama.  They come to collect all different kinds of leaves and bark and mashed up berries.  Other people call her _Mamae_ , the word foreign, like a forgotten prayer on their lips.  (Eliysium doesn’t know why.  He has had her tea before and it always tastes awful.  He tells her so and she laughs until tears rain from her cracked face.)

 

The medicine they make may always taste bad, because that is what medicine does, he thinks, but mashing the berries and distilling the potions becomes a fun game for him to play.

 

Other people come for grandmama’s medicine during the day, but the water mother puts on at night is for papa.

 

Papa is a dark skinned man, with dark hair and dark eyes and a dark expression.  He has scars, more scars than anyone else in the alienage, and he moves like they have all healed wrong and he no longer fits in his own skin.  He hobbles when he walks, and he does not say a lot, but his eyes always get a little lighter when Eliysium brings him his tea in at night.  He smiles and sips at the concoction and pets Eliysium’s hair.  Eliysium sits on his lap, nestled into his papa’s broad side and feels safe, staring into the embers of their fire.  Papa is the strongest person in the alienage.  He knows, because everyone says so.  They whisper about papa, use a word he does not yet understand.  They say he was a slave, once, from Tevinter.  An older boy from the alienage tells him the story, that papa escaped from a Tevinter trade ship, that he stole a rowboat and rowed for days and days, rowed his way through a storm and floated, half dead, to the shore on the wreckage.  And when the Tevinter slavers came to look for him, he fought them off and won his freedom.

 

Mama tells it differently.

 

She says that grandmama and her found papa, barely clinging to life.  They used medicine to help him get better and when scary men--when the Arl’s soldiers--came looking, with orders given by a Tevinter Magister to recover ‘lost property,’ they lied.  They gave them the wreckage of the little boat that they had salvaged for wood and told them the elf on the wreckage had died.

 

Lying is bad, but sometimes you have to lie, mama says.  Sometimes lying is the right thing to do.

 

 _He is helping mama and grandmama make tea._  They have to bring medicine to the orphanage because a few of the children there are very sick, and they need this to get better.  Everyone is loud that day, with angry-sad faces, and the game of making medicine does not feel fun anymore, feels frustrating and rushed and terrifying.

 

Mama tells him to take the water off the fire.

 

He does.

 

He grabs the bundled up rag he's seen them use to protect themselves from the hot metal handle and starts to bring it over, but the pot is _heavy_ , full of more water that he is expecting--they have never made this much medicine at once before--and he nearly upends the whole thing with the force he must use to carry it.  He has to steady it with his other hand.

 

Mama looks up and _screams_ when she sees him put his hand against the wide tummy of the pot.

 

It scares him, and he jumps, and he drops the large kettle to the ground, boiling water splashing against his bare feet.  He barely dodges the pot itself, and then mama’s arms are around him, cradling him, her voice hysterical.

 

She grabs shreds of cloth bandages and a bottle of elfroot paste and forces his hand open.  She is crying and it is making him cry.  Great, hiccuping sobs that hurt when they work their way out.

 

She sees that he is not burned and, if anything, she becomes even more hysterical.

 

She takes him by the shoulders and shakes him.  

 

He looks to grandmama for help.  She looks...calm.  Tired and old but with some infinite wisdom he cannot dare hope to grasp.  She looks like _Mamae._

 

She walks over to the two of them, placing her leathery, worn hand over Mama’s on his shoulder.

 

Mama makes him promise that he won’t tell anyone about this.  She makes him promise to lie if anyone, ever, asks about this.

 

Lying is bad, but sometimes you have to lie, mama says.  Sometimes lying is the right thing to do.

 

When papa comes home, they don’t tell him about it.

 

 _Eliysium learns to read._  He learns to write.  The woman who teaches him is cruel, with a strange (Orlesian) accent.  She calls him ‘knife ear’ when she is displeased with him, and ‘rabbit’ when she is _not displeased_ with him.  She is never _happy_ with him, but he learns to live life safely between the status quo and the extreme.

 

He learns not to incur her wrath, as the other children have also learned.  He learns a lot of things, all very quickly.  He learns where to eat and when, and he learns that if he is not there on time that he will not eat at all.  He learns to sit still and listen and to stand up and answer.  He learns that people’s lips twist, unpleasantly, when he introduces himself.

 

He does not learn why for a very long time.

 

 _Papa teaches him._  In the quiet of the night, when the moon is high in the sky, papa will tell him the meaning of new words, words no one else knows.  

 

Papa teaches him _Tevene_.  

 

Papa does not know many common words, and he did not bring any possessions with him from his homeland, but he did bring Eliysium a name.

 

_The glass beaker shatters against the ground, knocked off the tiny wooden table by Eliysium’s elbow._

 

Senior Enchanter Ines _scowls_ at him.

 

“Eli,” she calls him.  He jumps up, out of his seat, an apology warring on his lips against a rebuttal that his given name is _Eliysium_.  She sends him out of class before he can find out which reply will come out of his mouth.

 

Senior Enchanter Ines hates children and she hates teaching.  She spends a lot of time telling them so.  More time than she spends actually teaching them, in fact.  She is always more interested in scrawling notes upon pages and pages of vellum than she is in teaching them how to be better herbalists.

 

He gets the guts to tell her so one day.

 

She makes no secret of telling him-- _Eliysium_ \--that he is positively hopeless in the subject anyway, and attempting to teach him would only be a waste of her time.

 

He wants to bite back that he can probably make a better healing draught than she can.  He wants to tell her that he knows so much, she could write another stupid book using just the _slivers_ of what he _remembers_.

 

He does poorly in her class because everytime he has to use a stone and pestle to grind a stock of elfroot into a fine paste, all he can think about is a tiny little hut, not far from the sea, somewhere in Highever.  Somewhere in Highever, there is a woman with his same hair and a man with his same eyes and--

 

He can't stop remembering, even when it's inconvenient.

 

He doesn’t learn much of anything in Senior Enchanter Ines’ class, and she does not teach him.

 

 _He_ _forgets_.

 

One day, as Eliysium writes a letter home, he tries to picture his mother’s face.

 

The image that comes to him is blurry, the lack of detail nagging at his mind.  Her tries to rearrange her face in his brain, but he _knows,_  he _knows_ even as he _doesn’t know_ that she doesn’t look right.

 

_They discontinue his herbalist lessons._

 

First Enchanter Irving finds him crying frustrated tears about it on the stairs.  The wizened old man tells him that no one is good at everything.  His kind words sound hollow.

 

Irving asks him what area of study he might be interested in.

 

He almost tells him about the incident with the pot.  Almost tells him that he is not afraid of fire, has never been, that somehow he knows he will never get burned.  He's always known.

 

At the last moment, he thinks better of it, and tells the First Enchanter that he _doesn’t_ know.

 

Breaking his promise is what got him sent here in the first place.

 

The man smiles kindly, tells him that that is alright, and sends him on his way with a piece of hard candy.  (The taste is too sweet, after all the bland food he’s been given, but he says 'thank you' anyway because it’s polite.)

 

The First Enchanter calls him Surana when he wishes him a good day.

 

He doesn’t correct him.

 

_They are practicing their penmanship with one of the Chantry sisters today._

 

Many of them are writing letters home.

 

(They don’t _send_ the letters, he knows they don’t but...they are all children and they live small lives.  They don’t have a lot to write about.)

 

He doesn’t feel like writing a letter today.  It makes him too sad, to wrench out the words, knowing he will never get a reply back.

 

He writes a little bit about everything else he can think of, avoiding anything too negative because he’s gotten in trouble for slipping in a rude sentence once before already.  He runs out of things to say in his makeshift journal quickly, so he switches subjects and starts trying to write the Canticle of Light onto his paper, entirely from memory.  The Chantry Sister walks by, sees his work, pats his head like a pet, and gives him an ingratiating smile.  He waits until her back is turned to scowl.

 

Someone laughs to his left.

 

It’s Jowan.

 

Jowan slips him a piece of paper while the Sister’s back is still turned.

 

On it is the worst drawing he has ever seen, and he’s not really sure what it’s supposed to be, but Jowan is giggling like it holds some great joke.  So he smiles back.

 

_“Hi,” Jowan introduces himself as they leave the Chapel, dismissed for the day, “I’m Jowan.”_

 

“I know,” he answers.  “I remember.”

 

Jowan beams.

 

“I’m Eliysium,” he says.  “Eliysium Surana.”

 

Jowan crinkles his nose, not in the way that adults do it, but in the way of a child hearing the a strange, new name for the first time.  

 

Still...

 

“It’s okay if you just call me Surana.” he retcons.

 

 _“It’s all right that you’re not really any good at all the herbalist stuff,” Jowan assures him, when he confides in him._ “I’m not really any good at anything.”  He shrugs as he says it, like it’s not a big deal, but his shoulders are stiff and he can tell it bothers him.

 

_Jowan doesn’t ever talk about home._

 

Jowan doesn’t ever write home either.

 

They spend a lot of time together, so he finds himself doing those things less and less too.

 

It’s a relief, in a way.

 

_Their house seems quieter, smaller and bigger at the same time, now that they have invited the lie into it._

Mama and grandmama share looks sometimes, maternal and grave.

When he breaks his promise, it is an accident.

Brigand is older than him, nearly an adult’s height, (Eliysium himself is halfway into his sixth year and getting bigger everyday) and he is in charge today.  Brigand is strong beyond reason in the younger children’s eyes, even as Eliysium watches the adults purse their lips and shake their heads at his temper.  Still, when they have work to do and must leave their children alone for a while, it is Brigand they trust them with.

Such is the case today.  One by one, other children from the Alienage filter into Eliysium’s home (because it is a _home_ and not an crammed apartment or a drafty warehouse) and Brigand, with a sigh and a proud roll of his shoulders, settles in to entertain them for a while.

Brigand tells them, in hushed whisper and boisterous song, tale upon tale of the Elven hero Garahel.  Eventually--inevitably--Eliysium finds his eyelids growing heavy.

He wakes up from this nap, and finds himself alone in consciousness.  The other children, and Brigand, have also fallen asleep.  Their figures are strewn across the main room, dreaming deeply on the floor with snatches of blankets and dirty old dolls held tightly to their chests.  


He won’t wake them, he tells himself.  He’s still tired, anyway.

He’s tired, but he can’t get to sleep.

So does what he always does and closes his eyes and imagines lights.  Dancing lights, tumbling across the room.  He counts them as they go by, until he reaches a number he doesn’t know, then he starts over.  Mama always told him to count halla, but he’s never seen one of those before, so he just thinks about the lights instead.

He starts to slip into a dream.  The lights jump hazily around him.  They nestle against him, keeping him warm, and tickle against his fingertips.

He hears yelling.

When he opens his eyes, the entire room is on fire.

  


_He springs out of his bed, water cooling over him even as he sputters in shock._

Jowan is laughing wildly and holding an empty pitcher.

Everyone in the dorm room, including Surana, is glaring at him.

“Happy Feast Day!” his friend announces, grinning and looking proud of himself.  Surana grumbles unintelligibly and plucks at his soaked sleep shift.  It clings to his chest uncomfortably.  Cubes of ice fall off of his lap as he stands up, clattering to the floor.

“I thought Feast Day pranks were supposed to be clever?”

Jowan chuckles.  “Look, I poured ice water on a pyromancer, okay?  It’s the best I’ve got.”

Surana smiles, in spite of himself.

  


_Surana accidentally sets a Senior Enchanter’s robes on fire, one day, years later, when they are old enough to start learning elemental magics._

Eliysium would have gotten yelled at.  Called something nasty, like a Tevinter-blooded bastard.

Surana gets a laugh out of the man, who banishes the flames with a wave of his palm.  After class, he gets pulled aside and told, conspiratorially, that the spells they will be working on are only a few steps away from _battle magic._

  


_The teachers don’t like Eliysium, so neither do the children._

They shy away from him, afraid that the whisperings of Blood Mages from across the sea will transfer from him to them if they wander too close.

Jowan is the exception.

He starts to distance himself from the name Eliysium.  He starts to feel like he is two people--the person he is and the person he plays at being.  The teachers like Surana, and so, the children come to warm up to him too.  Surana is just another elf from an alienage, and the adults fawn over how polite and docile he is.

They keep working at elemental spells and the Senior Enchanters tell him he has an _affinity_ for fire.

He finds something he is good at.

The teachers begins to like him; they think positively of him, so the other apprentices do too.

Jowan in still the exception.

  


_He comes back to the dorm room one day, ready to have a nice chat with Jowan and then climb into the bottom bunk of the cot they share and go to sleep._ He waits and waits, rehearsing in his head how he’s going to tell Jowan the joke First Enchanter Sweeny told him this morning, but Jowan never appears.

He goes to supper alone, and looks for Jowan in the mess hall.  He leaves hungry, his stomach too sour for food.  All of Jowan’s things are gone from the drawers when he comes back.  He hears his loud laughter from the other side of the room as he settles in for a night of restless sleep.

He feels unsafe and exposed and alone.  He sees all the other apprentices staring at him, some curious and some vicious.  He curses his position in the middle of the room.  Jowan chose this bunk, not him.  Jowan had this insatiable need to have a gaggle of people around him, one that he could never say he shared.

He dreamt fretfully, adrift on a black ocean in the Fade in a tiny boat.  He kept on thinking he saw things in the water.  It is almost a blessing when it’s time to wake up.

Surana makes both of the beds, even though he probably doesn’t have to.  Better to be safe than to incur the wrath of whichever Templar or Senior Enchanter has been assigned to check over the apprentice quarters for cleanliness today.  Surana tucks the corners extra neatly as if that might make up for whatever Jowan is mad about.  

At breakfast, Surana sees him eating with a group of older apprentices.  He frowns as he studies the scene.  One of them is a nasty fellow, that Surana knows more by reputation than name.  They said he was the son of an Arl.  ’A little Lord,’ the Sisters sited, ‘had the Maker not cursed him so!’

(He sits behind Surana in class sometimes.  He always pulls his hair.)

They are all laughing, loudly, and Jowan looks all too pleased with himself.

Somehow, he always manages to have his face angled away from Surana, even though his body is facing toward him.  It’s almost comical, it’s so remarkably unsubtle.

Almost.

  


_No one moves into Jowan’s bed._

Surana keeps watching the ripples in the water at night.

  


_He wakes up to the Arl’s son bearing down on him._  He’s only a handful of years older than Surana, but life and genetics has treated them differently, meaning that is enough time for him to grow to be twice Surana’s size.  He grabs a fistful of Surana’s silverite hair, tugging his face painfully away from the pillow.  Another hand comes to rest on his face, the gesture a mockery of intimacy.  Surana _knows_ that the other apprentices are seeing this.  He _knows_ the Templars who line the halls could step in and stop it, if they choose to.

The hand travels from his face to his ear.  He grasps the pointed tip between a pair of meaty fingers.  Surana’s breath catches in a pathetic whine.  The man chuckles, pulls him closer, and calls him an ‘Elven whore’.

He casts Flashfire.

Templars rush in and smite him, their reaction to the screaming almost immediate.  ‘ _See?’_  He thinks. _‘I_ **_knew_ ** _you were listening.’_

  


_Jowan has already moved his stuff back, when Surana returns from a prolonged interrogation with First Enchanter Irving and Knight Commander Greagoir._ His eyes are red like he’s been crying a lot.  He has a painful looking bruise decorating his left eye.  When he changes into his night shift, Surana sees he has other bruises, too.

He doesn’t ask.

  


_He expects to be punished for what he did to the Arl’s son._

Instead, they increase his battle training.

He sees the Arl’s son, a week later, the sunburst on his forehead as bright as the flames that took his arm.

  


_(Years and years later, he finds out that the money the good Arl is contributing to Kinloch Hold is still pouring in._ Irving smiles serenely as he sees Surana’s eyes catch on the Tranquil in the hallway.  Surana lacks the words to describe the look in his eyes when he explains that the Arl still thanks him every year with a handwritten note on Andraste’s Day, for banishing the demons from his son’s mind.  He knows that, whatever it is, it makes him a little sick.)

  


_The yelling turns, quickly, into screaming._  A myriad of voices reach out to him, across the burning divide and crumbling walls.  They beckon him forward as he listens to them scream for water to put out the fire.  He tries to focus on those voices--adult voices, grown ups who will help him--because the ones within the house are too _terrible_.  There is wailing and crying and coughing.

Eliysium tries to peer through the heady smoke, tries to find the person who is coughing, so close yet so far.  He trips over a body--someone huddled into a ball at his feet--and tries to force them up, he wants to help, he wants to _save_ them.  The other child won’t move, just pushes him away and screams and screams.  Eventually, the screaming stops, and he stops trying.

Reaching, again, blindly, he grabs a hand and holds it.  Tightly.  The hand squeezes back, a desperate, clawing grip.  It _pulls_ once it has him, with a force that is Otherworldly.

Then, Brigand calls for him.  He focuses on that voice, that one, single voice, and runs the other direction.  Brigand gathers him into his arms, desperate, but desperate in the way of a person.  Eliysium returns that feeling, feels the skin of Brigand’s arm beneath his clutching hand  _bubble_.

A heavy beam crashes to the ground behind them as they step over the threshold.

Brigand drops.

His arms find her, somehow, in a sea of bodies.  His clothes are in tatters, but Eliysium himself is unharmed.  He’s terrified, clutching onto his mother’s skirt, asking her too-loudly to forgive him, swearing that he didn’t _mean_ to make the lights real.

He can’t hear the whispers around him over the sound of his blood in his ears.

He can hear Brigand, hysterical.   _The flames just started all at once,_ he cries.  His mother--Brigand’s mother--is cradling him.  Eliysium remembers the way his skin had cracked and broken, boiled against the heat like bad leather.  Eliysium remembers the children, with their tarnished dolls held against their hearts.

_It all happens so fast_.

His mother’s arms are around him, tight.  Tighter than she has ever held him.  Tighter than the Demon that had scrambled to catch and keep him, in that burning house.

There are hands.  Unfamiliar hands, rough and--and _so many of them, pulling him, dragging him._  Then, there are ropes.

The same sea that bore his father to freedom is the one that steals his.  The fastest way to the Lake Calenhad Circle from here, he hears the Templars say, is by boat.

He catches a glimpse, just the glimpse of them--three distinct and familiar figures on the shore line--before a bag is placed over his head.

  


_“It’s hard to believe you are that same child,” First Enchanter Irving comments._

Surana starts, looking back at Irving and trying to push away the inscrutable feeling that he has been caught doing something wrong.  He has never been in the First Enchanter’s office before and maybe he is a little guilty of paying more attention to his surroundings that he is to the man speaking to him.

Irving laughs amicably.  “Who would have thought we’d end up here?” he asks Surana rhetorically.  “Had I known, all those years ago that the young boy I found crying about herbology lessons I would also someday find myself asking to become my apprentice...”  He pauses, smiling at Surana like he is his father or friend.  “Fate has a funny way of things, doesn’t she?”  

It occurs to Surana that the only funny thing here is how all of the First Enchanter’s questions are rhetorical.

Surana is fifteen, and not a child anymore, but, again, he does not correct him

  


_Lessons pause once a year, for one day only, on Andraste’s Day._  It is supposed to be a day of religious contemplation, but he and Jowan mostly use it to catch up on sleep and be otherwise blasphemous.  “Is it already after noon?”  He asks stupidly, sitting up in bed, eyes drawn the the light streaming in from the windows that are too high and too small to be of much use for anything besides letting in the sun.  (They are barred nonetheless.)

Jowan looks up from the floor, up from the book he’s reading, and elbows him lightly in the leg.  “You must be terribly worried about your reputation.  What will people say when they find that _Irving’s Star Pupil_ has been slacking?”  

Jowan can hardly speak, each word warped around a chuckle, but he somehow manages to dredge up an impression of one of the many Senior Enchanters who had been in charge of them as they grew up; the Orlesian who had instated herself as an etiquette teacher, and had been none too shy about dishing out swatches for the slightest of misdeeds: “What good are you if you can’t even be up for noon tea, _dah-ling_?”

Surana has a mind to sock Jowan’s across the face with his deflated pillow, the way he turned his his nose up was so uncannily accurate.  (That and, well, he hated the nickname.)  His hand has snuck back, fingers already clenching upon the threadbare fabric in preparation for an attack, before it occurs to him that he cannot remember the last time the two of them have done such a thing.

He knows how Jowan struggles to keep pace with him.  He has begun to realize, just as surely, that he never will.  

Jowan is fiercely emotional.  Surana believes, despite any protests to the contrary, this is not always a bad thing for a Mage.  Deep emotional leanings can spur on impossible feats of powerful will.  But Jowan’s emotions are tied _so deeply_ to the perceptions of others, to what they _think of him_ , and this definitive flaw fills him with an endless well of doubt.

The more Surana succeeded, the more he charmed people with his polite (if impersonal) demeanor, the more Jowan had seemed to fall short in comparison.

The more often people found Jowan lacking, the more doubts and fears clawed at him, the more he concerned himself with his social standing and less with his studies…

Egad, why is he thinking about all of this now?

“What do you want to do today?”  Surana offers, taking his pillow and fluffing it in favor of his previously considered childish behavior.

“You mean you’re not too busy with important person business to mingle with the common folk?”  Jowan laughs, like it’s a joke, but his shoulders are stiff.

Surana frowns for a moment, not sure how to handle Jowan’s moods these days.  “I will be sure to come visit you once in awhile, when I reach the top.”  He delivers, with a bland voice.  (He muses, vaguely, that they are quite the horrible pair.  Jowan always says things he's serious about as if they are jokes; and Surana always says his jokes as if they are serious.)

Jowan opens his mouth to respond, to send another barb back at him, his eyes all alight with hope and playfulness, when they both see Senior Enchanter Wynne walking over to them.

She smiles, apologetically, and calls for Surana by name.  “I’m sorry, dear, but First Enchanter Irving has asked to see you.”

They are Mages of the Circle Tower.

Any promises of friendship or loyalty can ultimately only mean so much without the freedoms so often necessary to back them up.

Jowan doesn't look at him as he leaves the room.  Surana doesn't see him for the rest of the day.

  


_Surana is walking to the First Enchanter’s office when a frantic looking blonde boy stops him._

He grabs Surana by the shoulders, his blunt nails piercing effectively into his flesh with only his thin apprentice robe to act as armor.  “Have you seen Amell?!” the boy yells in his face.

He is shocked, accosted, confused.  He doesn’t manage more than a dumb sounding: “Who?” before the boy is done with him, rushing off down another endless circular hallway.

Surana sees Amell later that day, a limp body swinging from the rafters.

The sight of her will stay with him forever, he thinks, when he lays down to bed that night.

  


_It takes him a week to forget her name._

  


. . .

  
  


He woke in a cold sweat, heart pounding a staccato rhythm against his ribcage.

He has a singular thought in his head.

He catches sight of an apprentice he recognizes in the hallway and flags her down with a quick wave.  She’s an elf and she’s pretty and she blushes coquettishly when she realizes he wants to speak with her and he _should know her name_ but he realizes he just _doesn’t_.

“Do you know where Jowan is?”

She looked perplexed for a moment, before replying.  

“I’m sorry, who?”

 

* * *

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Another chapter posted on mobile, hopefully it turns out looking okay! Feedback will be treasured. UwU
> 
> 07/23/17 EDIT: I reworked the "Being Taken to the Cirlce/House Fire" scene slightly to combine some plot points I had intended for later. I had an 'Oh Duh' moment and realized it works better this way. So... "Oh. Duh."
> 
> 02/24/18: Minor edits to tenses. I have so much trouble keeping my verb tense consistent anyways, writing a flashback in the present tense while the rest of the story is in a more past tense really messed me up. Why do I make these difficult to carry out stylistic/symbolic choices? xD


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